Overcoming Cigarette Addiction

by pop tug

was 12 years old when I smoked my first cigarette. I took one big drag and instantly felt very dizzy. After the dizziness went away, I began feeling nauseous. To tell you the truth, I almost threw up from just taking one drag. I could not understand in that time of my life why people would smoke such a disgusting thing.

Fast forward six years and I had just turned 18. I was very rebellious during that time of my life, so I tried to find as many ways as I could to rebel against my parents. Even though I could legally smoke cigarettes at that age, it was a big slap in my mom’s face when I started the habit. My grandmother died of lung cancer from smoking cigarettes most of her life, so you can definitely understand my mom’s opinion on the subject.

Nevertheless, I was a rebellious 18 year old out to cause hardship on my mom. What better way to do that than to pick up a cigarette habit. At this same time, I ran away from Christianity and all the morals that it brings so people don’t have to suffer from what life has to offer. I really wanted to explore what life had to offer during that phase of my life—and I got it.

Four years later, I was getting tired of the negative results from smoking cigarettes. I was tired of being short-winded all of the time. I was getting tired of people’s remarks of how bad I smelled from the cigarette smoke. I was also getting tired of my family’s negative comments about my smoking habit. Most of all, I was getting tired of having to sneak outside of work to smoke a cigarette and risk getting caught just because the addiction was too strong for me to control. It got so bad that I couldn’t even sit through a whole movie at the movie theater without having to go outside to take a cigarette break.

So I tried to quite on several occasions during the next two years with no results. I tried to quit cold turkey—that lasted four hours. I tried to quit by using Nicorette gum, which was good off and on but with no lasting results. I tried using the patch a few times, but staying away from the real deal was too much for me to control.

Finally, after six years of smoking cigarettes, I finally quit! I went to my doctor and he gave me a prescription for a nicotine inhaler. I was supposed to use it for two months, but only needed it for one month. I have been free from the cigarette addiction ever since!

I am back to being a Christian now. Every so often I get cravings to smoke a cigarette. I have learned to give my craving for cigarettes and other things up to God so he can deal with them since it is too much for me to handle alone. Just imagine if I stayed being a Christian, I probably would not have to go through all of that torment that cigarettes has put me through.